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What the Russian Revolution would have looked like on social media

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    What is history?
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    It is something written by the winners.
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    There is a stereotype that history
    should be focused on the rulers,
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    like Lenin or Trotsky.
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    As a result, people
    in many countries, like mine, Russia,
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    look at history as something
    that was predetermined
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    or determined by the leaders,
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    and common people could not
    influence it in any way.
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    Many Russians today do not believe
    that Russia could ever have been
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    or ever will be a truly democratic nation,
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    and this is due to the way
    history has been framed
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    to the citizens of Russia.
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    And this is not true.
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    To prove it, I spent two years
    of my life trying to go 100 years back
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    to the year 1917,
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    the year of the Russian Revolution.
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    I asked myself, what if the internet
    and Facebook existed 100 years ago?
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    So last year, we built
    a social network for the dead people
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    named "project1917.com."
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    My team and I created our software,
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    digitized and uploaded
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    all possible real diaries and letters
    written by more than 3,000 people
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    100 years ago.
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    So any user of our website or application
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    can follow a newsfeed for each day of 1917
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    and read what people
    like Stravinsky or Trotsky,
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    Lenin or [??],
    and others thought and felt.
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    We watch all those personalities
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    being ordinary people like you and me,
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    not demigods,
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    and we see that history consists
    of their mistakes, fears, weaknesses,
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    not only their genius ideas.
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    Our project was a shock for many Russians,
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    who used to think that our country
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    has always been an autocratic empire
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    and the ideas of freedom and democracy
    could never have prevailed
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    just because democracy
    was not our destiny.
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    But if we take a broader look,
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    it's not that black and white.
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    Yes, 1917 led to 70 years
    of communist dictatorship,
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    but with this project, we see that Russia
    could have had a different history
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    and a democratic future
    as any other country could or still can.
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    Reading the posts from 1917,
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    you learn that Russia was
    the first country in the world
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    to abolish the death penalty,
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    or one of the first ones
    to grant women voting rights.
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    Knowing history and understanding
    how ordinary people influenced history
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    can help us create a better future,
    because history is just a rehearsal
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    of what's happening right now.
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    We do need new was of telling history,
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    and this year, for example,
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    we started a new online project
    that is called "1968digital.com,"
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    and that is an online documentary series
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    that gives you an impression
    of that year, 1968,
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    a year marked by global social change
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    that in many ways created
    the world as we know it now.
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    But we are making that history alive
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    by imagining, what if
    all the main characters
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    could use mobile phones,
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    just like that?
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    And we see that
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    a lot of individuals
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    were facing the same challenges
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    and were fighting for the same values,
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    no matter if they lived
    in the US or in USSR
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    or in France or in China
    or in Czechoslovakia.
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    By exposing history
    in such a democratic way,
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    through social media,
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    we show that people in power
    are not the only ones making choices.
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    That gives any user a possibility
    of reclaiming history.
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    Ordinary people matter.
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    They have an impact.
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    Ideas matter.
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    Journalists, scientists,
    philosophers matter.
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    We shape the society.
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    We all make history.
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    Thank you.
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    (Applause)
Title:
What the Russian Revolution would have looked like on social media
Speaker:
Mikhail Zygar
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
04:49

English subtitles

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